RIM‘s been struggling to catch up with Apple in the smartphone game, so a lot is riding on their debut tablet, the PlayBook… not only as a way to show that the company has what it takes in the evolved mobile landscape, but to roll-out their new, touchscreen-designed operating system, QNX.

There’s a slim window for RIM here: while they’ve promised the PlayBook next year, they need to release it before the iPad 2 steals its thunder in April. Consequently, it’s been speculated that RIM would launch the PlayBook in January, shortly after CES… but it now looks like RIM will cut things a lot closer to that.

During a recent earnings call, RIM executives made comments that suggested that the PlayBook had been delayed until March at the earliest. Depending on how close to the beginning of March RIM means here, that could mean that the PlayBook only enjoys a week or two window over the iPad 2… or could even launch at the same time.

Something tells me that RIM does not want to compete with the hype for the iPad 2 by launching in the same window… if they’re talking this sort of delay, there must have been a very unexpected hiccup.